LOS ANGELES -- With Ohio State's national title hopes on the way to becoming like a vague
recollection from a previous life, someone in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum press box Saturday
night suggested that it may be time for a quarterback controversy.

Controversy? Really, is that the right word for slipping Terrelle Pryor into the lineup ahead of
senior Todd Boeckman and using him on more plays next week against Troy and beyond?

It may make a few people in the Buckeyes locker room uneasy, most notably coach Jim Tressel, but
there would be no controversy. Pryor, an all-world talent, showed Saturday night against USC that
he is ready, maybe not to run all of the plays Boeckman does, or to read defenses the way Boeckman
does, or to hang with the upperclassmen the way Boeckman does, but ready to help the Buckeyes
regain some of their lost national respect.

This isn't even a tough call. In three huge games in the past three seasons, national
championship games with Florida and LSU and Saturday night's game with the No. 1-ranked Trojans,
the Buckeyes have looked like a team that is way, way out of its league.

Opponents in all of those games appeared more talented, not at every position certainly, but at
enough to make a huge difference. Tressel has at least one clear option at his disposal to counter
this. Pryor helps close the talent gap.

OK, the Buckeyes shouldn't need to close the gap Saturday against Troy -- if they do, their
troubles are much, much more serious than anyone knows -- or even against the rest of the Big Ten.
Dominance of football weaklings is responsible for putting them in this awkward position in the
first place. It's what gave poll voters the idea that OSU was better than Florida, on par with LSU
and maybe even ready to atone for those embarrassing losses against USC.

But for the Buckeyes to again to excel on the national stage, they need to excel against the top
teams from other conferences. The next chance to do that will come at the end of the season, be it
in the Rose Bowl, the Capital One Bowl, the Outback Bowl or somewhere else, and the sooner Tressel
gives Pryor the bulk of the snaps, the more experience he gets and the better chance they have to
do that.

By most accounts, Pryor was the nation's top prep recruit last spring. He is a player with
uncanny talent, a big, strong kid who finds a way to glide through defenders and also seems to
throw a nice ball.

Boeckman is a good player. He's experienced and has proved that he is good enough to excel
against the Minnesotas and Northwesterns of the world. But compared to Pryor, Boeckman has the
maneuverability of a dump truck. That's not a serious indictment of him; the same could be said of
most of the nation's starting quarterbacks. But the question is, what good does Pryor's speed and
fluidity do on the OSU sideline, especially when a porous offensive line is putting Boeckman's life
in jeopardy on almost every play.

Why an experienced offensive line is having so many problems is debatable, but it is clear there
are problems. An OSU offense that was supposed to be explosive has gained only 460 yards the past
two weeks, and poor protection has been a big part of that. Is it scheme? Motivation? Coaching?
Talent? Hard to say, but something is clearly wrong there.

OSU brought in several top freshman offensive linemen -- Mike Adams, J.B. Shugarts and Mike
Brewster all were much hyped coming in -- and it may time to let them try to share more of the load
up front; ultimately, closing the talent gap is obviously going to require replacing more than one
player.

As it is, the line's problems lay at the root of why it may be incumbent to use Pryor more and
Boeckman less. If opposing defenders are going to set up like homesteaders in the OSU backfield,
escape is the only way to counter that.